The United States Department of Justice accuses the leader of a Japanese criminal organization, Takeshi Ebisawa, of trying to sell to a middleman uranium and plutonium that he believed were intended for the manufacture of nuclear weapons in Iran.
The middleman in question, a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent posing as an arms trafficker, claimed he was in contact with an Iranian “general” interested in such a transaction.
The general was personified by another DEA agent, who expressed his interest in fissile material during a call in 2021, specifying that his country hoped to use it for the production of nuclear weapons.
The operation, in which Iran actually played no role, seemed to convince Takeshi Ebisawa, who said he represented a Burmese ethnic group with access to vast reserves of uranium.
Takeshi Ebisawa argued that hundreds of kilos of the product under his control could be exchanged for a long list of weapons to be used in the ongoing insurgency in the Asian country.
During a meeting held in February 2022 in Thailand, the Japanese trafficker and his acolytes presented DEA agents with plastic jars containing, according to them, uranium concentrate.
They were seized and transmitted to the American authorities, who had them analyzed in a specialized laboratory.
The examination made it possible to detect uranium, thorium as well as weapons-grade plutonium which could actually have been used in the production of a nuclear weapon.
Heavy sentence possible
Takeshi Ebisawa, who was already detained in the United States in connection with a drug trafficking case, faces a long series of charges that could earn him a life sentence.
He is notably accused of international trafficking in nuclear material, punishable by a maximum prison sentence of 20 years.
DEA Chief Anne Milgram said in a statement Wednesday that the Japanese defendant’s alleged behavior represented an “extraordinary example of the depraved nature” of traffickers “operating without any regard for human life.”
Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen said it is “staggering to imagine the consequences” that the trafficker’s efforts could have had if he had actually sold significant quantities of fissile material that could be used in a weapon. nuclear.
The DEA’s staging goes against the official discourse of Iran, which has always denied the military nature of its nuclear program, saying instead that it wants to develop its expertise in the field for civilian purposes.
In 2015, Tehran concluded an agreement with several countries providing in particular for the sending abroad of the enriched uranium reserves it had to avoid any slippage.
The agreement was abandoned a few years later by the United States, leading to renewed tension with Iran, which is now accused of enriching uranium close to the threshold required for military purposes.
Punishable with a heavy sentence
Ali Vaez, a specialist on Iran attached to the International Crisis Group, notes that the country has limited quantities of uranium to meet its “declared nuclear ambitions” and could overcome its known reserves by operating a half -dozen nuclear power plants for around ten years.
Thomas Juneau, a Middle East specialist at the University of Ottawa, notes that the Iranian regime has established elaborate smuggling networks to meet its own military needs and transport weapons and components to its allies. while circumventing international sanctions.
Technologies required as part of the nuclear program have notably been obtained in this way, notes Mr. Juneau, but there is nothing to say that this is the case for fissile material as in the scenario imagined by the DEA.
The use of organized crime was also “plausible”, notes the analyst, since Tehran de facto uses certain organizations of this type to support its smuggling activities.
The recent revelation by American justice of a plot to assassinate an Iranian activist established in the United States with the help of a Canadian Hells Angel is another illustration of the regime’s links with the underworld, indicates Mr. Juneau .